Swaptacular is free software that strives to make creating and issuing new digital currencies practical for everyone.
Most importantly, Swaptacular automates currency exchanges — helping businesses and individuals to efficiently and fairly swap what they have for what they need.
We live in a globalized economy. However, ensuring that the world’s resources flow smoothly across the globe isn’t easy.
To make this possible, the major international players must agree on a small set of global reserve currencies — like the US dollar, Bitcoin, and gold. These currencies are deliberately chosen and regulated to make global trade more predictable — and, naturally, to serve the interests of those who manage them.
Unfortunately, those interests don’t always align with everyone else’s!
Historically, to protect their economies, independent nations created their own banking systems and issued national currencies. The goal was simple: keep as much trade as possible within national borders.
National central banks had to balance competing needs. There had to be enough currency in circulation to pay decent wages — but not so much that workers could buy up all domestic goods. Some surplus had to be reserved for international trade, where essential imports were purchased with global reserve currencies. Often, central banks stabilized the system by pegging the national currency to a global reserve currency — a policy called “a currency peg.”
But the problem with national banking isn’t much different from the problem with global trade. It treats the nation as a single, aggregated economy. It can not account for the competing interests of banks, industries, the rich, and the poor.
The result? The national currency ends up serving the national elites, while the average person is left to fend for themselves.
During the Great Depression, some companies took matters into their own hands. They printed their own currencies, pegged to the national currency, to pay workers. For the customers and communities that relied on those companies, this money was just as good as “real” money.
Yet, sustaining these local systems was practically impossible. Currency exchange was difficult, counterfeiting was a constant threat, and state interference could easily destroy them.
Today, digital currencies make local trading systems cheaper, safer, and truly viable for small businesses.
For the first time, we can have money that works for the community — not the other way around!